Channel 10:

Scooby Under Scrutiny

I loved Scooby as a little guy and I love him as a big little guy now (
I mean grown-up. I'm still 5'8" PLEASE get your mind out of the gutter.) But
after tons and tons of watching him at all hours of the day at night, I am
afraid something has happened. Perhaps because I am just a didactically
analytical kind of fellow, or perhaps because I spend FAR too much time
considering such things when I need to be getting a great deal of my work
done...I have done a great deal of thinking about the aspects of all things
Scooby. And in some lame attempt to actually turn that INTO work, this month
I would like to elaborate about them and see if any of my loyal readers have
ever had the same ideas cross their perhaps equally as cartoon-bathed
craniums.

First of all lets discuss the various incarnations themselves. As always,
the classic first 2 years are the most...well...CLASSIC, hands down. Remember
all those nifty little cheeseball nobody-named rock songs played during chase
sequences? I have them downloaded on my computer (Sick huh? Well imagine
the guy that compiled them). And as canned as it is, I really never fail to
be delightedly tripped out by a cartoon with a LAUGH TRACK.

Moving along, the
Scooby-Doo movies are fun and always a pleasure to have Scooby for an hour
instead of the fly-by 30 minutes...but a lot of the "guests" really confound
me (more about that later). Now on the New Scooby-Doo Adventures, I CAN
deal with Scrappy as long as the rest of the gang are around. Let me say
unconditionally now, when Scrappy became a main character on his own later,
with much of the gang missing during a few later years of crap-worthy shows,
I REALLY wanted someone to put Scrappy to sleep.) Scooby-Dum (is HE
Scrappy's dad? Does anyone know? When and where did Scooby get this complex
family tree? ) is also tolerable as long as he's just around for "new
wacky-side neighbor effect," kind of like when the lying Izuzu guy lived
next to the people on Empty Nest but when he ever takes center stage, he
also needs to be...ahem...COLLARED. The later and now hopefully burned
incarnations of just Scooby and Shaggy that didn't even involve a mystery but
just random running all over creation are abominable.

Let's get personal about these people's personas now. Yes, I see Fred,
Daphne etc. as PEOPLE now. Perhaps indeed someone needs to raise my
medication. Considering the Woodstock era when these cartoons made their
blessed appearance, is there ANYONE who doesn't wonder what Scooby Snax are
made of and perhaps what CAUSES them to be craved so mightily? I will give
you a hint, I bet it often calls the kettle black.

And what exactly is the interrelation between these people? I
mean Fred, for God's sake, wears cross-over loafers and an ASCOT. Is he perhaps
LIGHT in said loafers or is he doing his constant fashion homage to Charlton
Heston in Soylent Green? Where on earth do these people GET their money to
travel so much and to feed that surely gas-guzzling psychedelically painted
van with gas? Do they have jobs? Are they independently wealthy? Do they have
PARENTS? And speaking of sexuality, let's take a gander at Velma (if you
dare). She wears knee socks, she's the ostensibly brainy one, she wears
thick glasses AND she is the only one with a non-MOD haircut. Do the math.
Since we are all grown up now and it is a well known fact that much of the
animation industry plays for the other team, are members of our beloved gang
the ancestors of South Park's Big Gay Al and Springfield's Wayland Smithers?

Think about it. But not for too long, not to be homophobic but if you
stress about it for too long you MIGHT get creeped out. Then again, in
Fred's defense, he IS on a phenomenally-made commercial on my beloved
Cartoon Network where he gets all huffy that Daphne has dissed him for Alan
of Josie & the Pussycats.

Now let's examine Scooby-Doo mythology itself and its flagrant lack of
logistics. We can excuse Shaggy and Scooby because they are ostensibly stoned
all the time, but wouldn't you think the "brains' of this outfit (Fred and
Velma) would just STOP being scared of each and ever new monster the same way
that Scully finally started to believe that aliens caused everything after
100 encounters or so? Why are they always so frightened and running (to the
SAME music) when it seems like it might HIT them that..."Hey, maybe this
werewolf/ghost/vampire/space alien might be just someone pretending to keep
us away from treasure." Maybe. Now, let's go as promised in the
aforementioned to the movie guests issue. Harlem Globetrotters, Sandy Duncan,
Jerry Reed (even though I had to explain to a LOT of younger new viewers who
the hell Jerry reed IS (60's-70's country star, "The Guitar Man." ~ Ed.))...these are all logical luminaries of the time (the mid-70's). But Laurel and Hardy? Especially when Laurel and Hardy are show,
in their ages as they would be approx. 50 YEARS before the cartoon was made?
And BATMAN AND ROBIN? Come on!! At least all these other folks are real (if seemingly in a time warp like Laurel and Hardy) but Batman and Robin...
aren't REAL people. This simply bugs the shit out of me. How can you separate
the pretend monster from reality when your cohorts for that hour are
comic-strip superheroes? That is just FAR too many violations of space and
time and rationality for my cartoon-analyzing brain to deal with.

Now, let's address this meddling issue. Now none of these baddies were
exactly dressing like a mummy to sell nuclear secrets or keeping pieces of
serial-killing murder victims in their barns, their impending crimes were
usually misdemeanors at best. So, as much as I adore Scooby-Doo, I am
sometimes on the side of the baddies. They are minding their own business in
their 2-bit swindling operation that's probably really NOT causing all that
much sociopathic damage...and here comes along a bunch of snot-nosed stoners
of questionable sexuality mucking up heir works who obviously seemingly have
nothing better to do. At times I think, 'ya know...I WOULD be pissed off too
!!'

And finally...FINALLY...doesn't anyone every once in awhile wonder why NO
ONE, not one single monster, guest star or sheriff they come in contact with
remarks that these people have a DOG that talks? A TALKING FRIGGIN' DOG,
people!!!

Is anyone with me on this or any of these other issues? Anyone...? Anyone...?